Trinidad has been compared to Bagdad over these checkpoints by the ACLU-and even by FOX news!

Checkpoints encircling a community are the hallmark of an occupying army trying to suppress a hostile indigenous population. That's not my words, but rather those of a speaker on an edition of WPFW's Spirit in Action that went out last time checkpoints were imposed on Trinidad.

Such checkpoints are ubiquitous in occupation regimes and extremely rare in communities NOT under occupation! We are not talking here about members of a community erecting their OWN checkpoints to keep out those they don't know, BTW. That is sometimes seen in civil wars and places without a functioning government, but in that case those manning the checkpoints know the people whose homes they are trying to protect-and a visitor with a name should be able to get through.

Again using Iraq as an example, if the Madhi Army set a checkpoint to exclude Al Qaeda from a Shiite neighborhood, the Madhi Army fighters were drawn from the community and presumably were expected to know local residents on sight and wave them through!

For MPD to manage this in Trinidad would be damned difficult, as it would require that enough of MPD's officers live in Trinidad as true members of the community(knowing their neighbors) to staff the checkpoints and wave locals and their visitors(upon hearing the name of a resident) through.

As a result, what Trinidad residents and their visitors have been saying to the ACLU is that cops are treating everyone as a criminal suspect and are degrading people.

I am NOT trying to second guess Trinidad residents! Instead I am listening to what some Trinidad residents are saying on WPFW and to the ACLU. As for the Bagdad comparison, I am not the first to say this-and heard it even of FOX news before ever being able to set up a broadcast and use it on WSQT.